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Home / Werewolf / Betrayed Luna: The Alpha's Claim / Kabanata 121 - Kabanata 130

Lahat ng Kabanata ng Betrayed Luna: The Alpha's Claim: Kabanata 121 - Kabanata 130

235 Kabanata

121

Elena pov When the white faded, I wasn’t in the forest anymore. The cold was gone. The wind. The snow. The tension is humming in the air. All of it had been replaced by a stillness so deep it felt like the world had exhaled for the first time in centuries. I stood barefoot in a place that defied reality. It looked like a ruined temple, ancient and carved from silver stone that shimmered like starlight. Vines of crystal threaded through cracked pillars. Flowers bloomed in the air—not on the ground, in the air—suspended as if gravity was merely a suggestion. A shallow pool of glowing water stretched ahead of me, reflecting a night sky that wasn’t above but within it. And silence. A silence that wasn’t empty. It was full. Of memory. Of waiting. And in the centre, just as before, stood her. Ethereal. The same silhouette I’d seen in the smoke—only now fully formed. She was taller than I expected, towering yet graceful, with skin like moonstone and eyes like the void between

122

Elena pov After Lykan helped me sit up and sip some warm tea, we returned to the others at the base camp near the ridge. The fire was burning low, casting gold light against the snow, and everyone looked up the moment we arrived—relief breaking across their faces in waves. Aurora, Scarlet, Sylvester, Dominic, and all of them stopped what they were doing. “She’s awake,” Lykan announced. Aurora stood quickly, brushing snow from her sleeves. “Goddess, we thought—” “I’m fine,” I said gently, though my voice was still soft, still frayed. “Just… a lot happened.” They gathered around quickly. Concerned faces. Tension still hangs in the air like frost. I sat on a thick fur near the fire, Lykan beside me, close but silent. Watching. “I need to tell you all what I saw.” And I did. I told them everything. From the moment I followed the voice through the forest to the clearing… the blooming lotus… the smoke that swallowed me whole… and Ethereal. I told them about the temple the way i

123

Scarlet Pov The night was sharp, cold enough to bite, but the magic we were drawing into the earth felt warmer than fire. Aurora knelt beside me, her fingers stained with ash and chalk as she sketched the final arc of the rune circle. Dominic stood on the other side, holding a lantern, the golden light flickering across his face and catching the edges of his jaw like firelight on a blade. I’d never seen anyone work so hard for something they didn’t fully understand. Dominic wasn’t a witch. Not born of spells or prophecy. He didn’t have the blood for it. But he gave himself anyway holding the tools, carrying the bags, fetching water, braving the wind when others ducked for cover. He bickered with Aurora like it was his life’s mission, calling her every sarcastic name under the moon. But he never once let her walk alone in the woods, never let anyone else light her fire when she was too tired to conjure sparks. And when she wasn’t looking, he smiled like he was proud of her

124

Elena pov The map of the northern range lay spread across the old war table like a canvas of secrets. I had studied it for hours, my eyes scanning every mountain path, every faded rune and mark from a time before mine. The ink had worn thin in places, curling at the edges from the cold creeping into the room. I should have been resting. But sleep never came easily. Not with moirea in my blood. I had seen this mad a thousand times growing up. Heck, I could even draw it with my eyes closed. I traced the curve of a ridge near the top of the map, Lupin’s Teeth, they called it. A jagged line of mountains known for deadly winds and unstable cliffs. No one dared go past them unless they had a death wish or something to prove. But my fingers kept drifting there. Something about the space between those peaks pulled at me like gravity. My head dipped forward. The warmth from the small fire in the hearth and the steady rhythm of my own breath blurred the map beneath me. My vis

125

Elena POV The morning sun did little to warm us. It hovered pale and distant over the peaks, casting long shadows through the pines and bathing the rocky slope in cold light. The wind screamed as it rushed between narrow crevices, and snow clung to the ground in stubborn patches, crunching underfoot as we began the climb. We moved in a single file, the silence between us broken only by Aurora’s occasional spellwork, a whispered enchantment to reveal hidden footholds or keep the frost from numbing our hands. Scarlet moved like she’d been born in the mountains, steady and sure. Dominic was… very elegant. “I am not built for this,” he grumbled, slipping for the fifth time. “Can someone remind me again why I couldn’t stay back and guard the tents?” “Because you eat too much to just sit around,” Aurora muttered, casting a glowing rune onto the rock wall. Dominic grunted. “You act like it’s a crime to enjoy soup.” “You act like you were raised by soup.” Despite everything,

126

Elena pov The mountain was silent now. The echo of the creature’s collapse had faded into the thin wind, and all that remained was the hush that followed, power-like, the earth was holding its breath again. I wasn’t. I was breathing hard, chest rising and falling in uneven gasps as I stumbled back from the hollow. My knees trembled, and my arms ached as if I'd just carried something impossibly heavy. Because maybe I had. That… thing—that fragment—had melted into me. Become part of me. I could still feel it, a strange warmth humming low in my belly, threading through my blood like wildfire. Not painful. Not kind either. Old. Awake. Watching. “Elena!” Lykan’s voice reached me as his arms did—strong and steady, catching me before my legs could give out. “I’m okay,” I whispered. But I wasn’t sure I meant it. He guided me down gently, helping me sit on a nearby stone where the snow had already melted in a perfect ring around me. From the heat? From the magic? I didn’t know anym

127

Sophia – POV I don’t sleep anymore. Not really. I close my eyes and wait, but the quiet doesn’t come. Only the whispers. And the pain. It started in my bones, days ago tiny flares of heat and cold, like my body couldn’t decide if it was burning or freezing. Now it’s everywhere. My limbs ache, my skin pulses, my veins feel too tight for my blood. The scars. The veins now went up my next purple and black. Some down my thighs as blue. Mother had promised to find her an elixir, but of course, she could not do anything right. And the mirror… it watches me. The one in my chambers is cracked now, split from top to bottom after I threw a candle at it last night in a fit of rage. It still reflects me, though. Half of me. The other half... distorted. Sickly pale. Eyes are too bright. Hair clinging to sweat-damp skin. I didn’t always look like this. I didn’t always feel like this. I used to be beautiful, now I need to cover it up. I used to smile. Dance. I used to be ful

128

Elena pov It happened all at once. No warning. No sound. Just a sudden stillness so complete, so unnatural it made the world feel like it had stopped breathing. I was alone in the map tent, bent over a wide piece of vellum spread across the table, tracing routes we might take through the northern valleys. My quill moved slowly, each line a piece of a puzzle I didn’t fully understand. I was focused. Sharp. Awake. Until I wasn’t. The air in the tent shifted. Heavier. Charged. My hand froze mid-stroke, and a shiver slithered down my spine not from cold, but from something deeper. A kind of instinct that came not from logic, but from blood. From memory. Then the pain hit me. A sharp, blinding pulse that spread across my chest like a brand pressed into my ribs. I gasped and stumbled back, nearly toppling the chair. My legs felt unsteady, the ground tilting under me, and the map… it flickered. Just for a second. The lines on it blurred, shimmered—like reality coul

129

Elena – POV The Wailing Grove did not welcome us. It never had. The stories about this place had been whispered for centuries of voices in the dark, illusions that devoured sanity, of a forest that lived and breathed and remembered. A place where sunlight died and never returned. And here we were, walking into its heart under the cover of night. The trees stretched high above us like gnarled limbs, their twisted branches interwoven so tightly they choked the moonlight, leaving only slivers of silver to mark our path. Fog rolled low along the mossy ground, thick as wool, hiding every root and crevice. The deeper we moved, the more muffled the world became. No birds. No wind. Only our breathing. And the map. Aurora held it tightly under a small spelllight. The fragment embedded in my skin pulsed softly in rhythm with the lines drawn on the parchment, guiding us toward the second marked location. Scarlet moved silently ahead of us, blades already unsheathed. Dominic trailed be

130

Mira's POVIt had been days since Elena and Lykan ventured to the Northern Range Pack, and yet, every time the wind howled, I imagined it carried whispers of their names. Each gust tugged at my chest, stirring worry like coals beneath a fire, and the air itself seemed to hold its breath.I sat on the edge of the worn wooden stool in the kitchen, my eyes trailing the steam rising from a bubbling pot of Chicken broth. The scent of herbs, flour, and firewood blended into something comforting but it couldn’t settle the unease burning inside me.Elena, I whispered to myself, not for the first time that morning. Please be safe for us..From the far corner, one of the elder women, her hands white with flour, looked up, her silver hair was tightly bound into a knot that sat like a crown on her head, and her back was hunched but strong. She was one of the oldest in the Moreia pack, yet her gaze had a youthful sharpness, almost as if the years had added wisdom but never dimmed her spirit.She s

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